Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is quite a controversial and complicated area. As the Deputy probably knows, the National Council for Special Education criticised the heavy reliance on expensive assessments in the previous model for allocating resource teachers. It argued that children from disadvantaged backgrounds or disadvantaged schools were less likely to be able to afford to access such assessments and that this was denying access to children. The new model seeks to move away from the heavy reliance on assessments and to make more allocations on the basis of the education profile and need of the school in question. The move we are making is designed to better meet the needs of students and to ensure the whole school has a responsibility for accommodating children with special needs. Obviously, we leave it to the parents of such children to choose between mainstream and special education. As I said in my initial reply, the number of special classes within mainstream schools has increased significantly to accommodate parents who want a foot in both approaches.

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